Day 8 – June 25, 2001

Boise, ID to Fruitland, ID

57.83 miles
16.97 average speed
3:30pm departure
8:15pm arrival
3:24:38 total ride time
507.37 total trek miles

            I'm not sure if whoever said that all good things must end is right, but I do know that our stay with the Bates Family had to end sooner or later. It felt a little like we were leaving home for the second time, but we had to wait until the afternoon to feel that way. What I mean is our plan to get an early start was foiled quickly by bike repairs and our general stupidity.
            When we finally did get off, we each felt like a million bucks because of the weekend of rest. That's five million bucks if you add all us up. With all that good feeling goin' on among us, it was no wonder we got to Fruitland in so short a time. It would be nice to attribute all our speed to ourselves, but, of course, that would be going too far. It happened that we couldn't stop. We could, but whenever we did we were swarmed by bugs called buffalo gnats. It was annoying, yes, but it was also strange because we believe, and we've believed for some time now, that we are not buffalo. Still they obviously could not tell us from buffalo so they continued their bothering lifestyles despite all our efforts to convince them of our non-buffalo orientation.
             In Fruitland we stayed with lovely family, parented by Neil and Sherri Fullmer, who fed us, laundered our clothes, and gave us space to bed down. They learned, however, that even though a lasagna may be designed to serve twelve in theory, in practice it might, in fact, serve much less, like, say, five.